Enclosures for vehicles, including battery powered or gas or diesel powered vehicles such as recreational vehicles, utility terrain vehicles (UTV's), such as the Kobota RTV and Polaris RANGER, golf carts, neighborhood electric vehicles (NEV'S, which can be street-legal), tractors, and other 2-wheel drive, 4-wheel drive, all-wheel drive capable vehicles, on or off-road, to enclose a passenger compartment and/or protect the occupants from inclement weather, are well known. In general, cabs for such vehicles utilize conventional front or rear hinged doors. In addition to being unattractive, such enclosures suffer from various drawbacks, including difficulty in obtaining ingress and egress from the passenger compartment, lack of durability, a requirement that the doors remain closed during operation of the vehicle, unattractiveness, etc.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,293,610 to Howard discloses a door system for a golf cart-like street legal vehicle. A pair of hinged doors is removable from framework on each side of the vehicle. The framework is permanently mounted to existing structure on the vehicle.
None of the foregoing embodiments provides an aesthetically pleasing, durable, weather resistant, and easy to operate door system for vehicles such as utility terrain vehicles. In addition, none provides a door assembly where the door can be stored in the open position in an aesthetically pleasing manner and without risk of it unexpectedly and/or undesirably slamming shut during movement or sudden stopping of the vehicle.